Governor Parson announces special session on supplemental budget during COVID-19 press conference

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (KMIZ)

Missouri Governor Mike Parson announced a special session on a supplemental budget bill during Wednesday's COVID-19 press conference.

The special session is scheduled to begin Nov. 5, 2020.

Watch the event replay in the media player below.

Since the General Assembly passed the FY 2021 budget in May, additional federal funding has been made available to the state, including funding under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. The supplemental budget will provide access to this funding, which is intended to appropriate additional resources to respond to COVID-19.

“COVID-19 has had an overwhelming impact on our state, and while we have made great progress, this additional funding will be critical as we continue to respond and work through the recovery process,” Governor Parson said. “We look forward to working with the General Assembly to make sure these funds are distributed across Missouri as soon as possible.”

The supplemental budget contains funding for school nutrition services program, the emergency solutions grant program for homelessness prevention, job training grants, and child support payments, among others.

Gov. Parson also explained some of the issues with Missouri COVID-19 data from case spikes to positivity rates.

“With so many different methods and calculations, providing real-time data at this quantity and level of detail comes with its own set of challenges,” Governor Parson said. “However, we have continually worked to be transparent, address these challenges, and provide Missourians with the most accurate and up-to-date information as possible, and we remain committed to helping citizens understand the impact of COVID-19 on our state.”

Testing and Positive Cases

DHSS will occassionaly input a large amount of tests from a laboratory or provider that has accumulated over a period of time for a multitude of issues. This can sometimes result in a spike of positive cases that did not all occur within a 24-hour time frame but rather over a period of several days.

Similarly, DHSS has also consistently seen a decrease in the number of tests, and therefore cases, reported on weekends compared to weekdays. This cycle causes non-representative dips and spikes in the numbers each day on the dashboard as those samples are tested and reported by labs.

COVID-19 Deaths

Similar situations also occur with reported COVID-19 deaths. For instance, approximately once per week, DHSS analyzes incoming death certificates and links COVID-19 associated deaths with the appropriate cases in the state’s disease surveillance system. Those that had not already been reported to the state by another entity are then captured and reported publicly through the dashboard. This activity typically causes a sharp increase in the deaths added to Missouri’s total the following day, which is most often on Saturdays.

For these reasons, Governor Parson and DHSS encourage individuals to follow the past 7-day trends for all data sets and how these trends have changed over time to get a better sense of COVID-19’s impact in the state.

Positivity Rates

The dashboard has also made two methods of calculating for positivity rate available on the dashboard.

10.7% reflects the total number of positive PCR tests in the past 7 days, divided by the total number of PCR tests in the past 7 days. This methodology is used by the CDC.

21.0% reflects the number of individuals who have received their first positive PCR test within the last 7 days, divided by the number of individuals who have received their first PCR COVID-19 test within the last 7 days. It is higher because it "de-duplicates" individuals who have already received a test prior to this 7-day period.

During last week's briefing, the governor released information about the state's plan to administer a COVID-19 vaccine once one becomes available.

Check back for updates to this story and watch ABC 17 News at 5.